In the digital age, organizations may store, manage, and access ever increasing volumes of data. Some organizations may use object-based storage systems for improved scalability and performance in data storage. Object-based storage systems may stripe file data across one or more objects that may be stored in various locations in a storage cluster.
Unfortunately, on occasion a storage device within a storage cluster may become a “hotspot” (i.e., one or more objects on the storage device may be in high demand). For example, certain applications (such as media applications) may use large files that are written to infrequently but read from by multiple clients. While some algorithms used to distribute the objects across the storage cluster may tend to result in fewer hotspots, in practice any given distribution may result in a hotspot. Unfortunately, attempts to migrate objects responsible for such hotspots to different storage devices may simply result in the migration of hotspots or in the later creation of hotspots. Ultimately, migrating objects may consume resources without providing a stable, load-balanced object placement. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies a need for systems and methods for hotspot mitigation in object-based file systems.